De-barked?

ORIGINAL: Xerxes

The majority of show pharaoh hounds are debarked.  I can understand why seeing how Xerxes, at times, really loves his voice.  And I mean LOVES his voice.  The best part of that is that the pharaoh hound bark has a certain timbre that shoots into your ear and vibrates the very core of your soul. 

[sm=lol.gif] Xerxes, sometimes I think you must be mad for your choice of breed. But hey, when it comes down to it, barking can be a pretty puny downside to the tremendous upsides of the breed for you. Just this morning my corgi got herself into such a frenzy trying to keep up with her boxer/kelpie cross buddy down at the lake that I was about ready to throttle her. Her bark can get that shooting-through-your-skull sense to it. The crazy thing was, she would sit and lie down and be still and do whatever I asked her to do in an instant, but just would not stop barking! And just last week I said somewhere that I rarely had trouble with her barking. I had forgotten how excitable she gets in the company of other dogs. It was kind of amusing seeing her plant her butt on the ground with perfect obedience and then follow it with every command she knew while barking constantly throughout. She was trying to be quiet, but it was all too much for her. [sm=lame.gif]

I live and have growm up in a somewhat farm town so barking has never bothered me one bit.  At almost anytime of night you can hear dogs bark from all around, most hearding dogs breed and used for hearding.  For me a dog's bark is no differnt from any other sound, like living by a road, you just get use to the sounds of cars driving by at all times.  Thats what dogs do, they bark.

The only de-barked dog I ever heard sounded like a robot.  The sound was much quieter than the normal bark but the dog still had a bark and sounded very mecanical.  I've only seen it described in vet med jornals on how it's done but the idea of any vet messing around in that area kinda scares me.